Northland Hockey coach Pat Barry was pretty happy with the way a `makeshift' Northland side coped with North Harbour in his first match in charge yesterday.
Harbour have been training together for a few weeks now, but Barry met many of his players for the first time at a team meeting
before the game.
Yet despite missing most of Northland's better known players, the team held together and only trailed Harbour by a single goal at half time.
The score blew out in the second spell and Harbour registered a 5-1 win.
"Northland played quite well and I was actually pretty impressed with what I saw considering that more than 60 per cent of the top line-up weren't there," Barry said.
A few of the players had called in sick and others had taken advantage of a weekend without club hockey to get out of town, Barry said, leaving some of the lesser lights to press their case for selection.
"Structurally they played very well considering it was virtually a Northland B team, individual skill sets were pretty good and they were playing a fairly sharp North Harbour side, so I saw it as a positive - leaving the score to one side, they still remained well in the game."
Barry said the match allowed him to discover what the individuals can do and he was particularly impressed with how some of the younger players performed.
The squad's regular trainings are now on Wednesday at 8pm to prepare for the National Hockey League starting on September 19.
